help! broken branch!!

jimmygreen

last night i was applying wire to my serissa bonsai when i pulled a branch too far back and it broke, leaving a huge gash down the rest of the branch. it's a fairly large branch and if i left it the way it is it would look hideous. almost immediately i tightly tied the broken piece of the branch back to the rest of the branch with wire just to hold it in place for the time being. i don't know if this will do anything, but i couldn't think of anything else to do. if anyone could offer any sort of advice, it would be MUCH appreciated. it would be great if i could salvage this poor branch! help!

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Jay

Jimmy, first let me say I am a novice.... take my advise as such. It sounds to me like the branch seperated. Is this from the trunk or part of the way in from the trunk? Either way it seems like you are going to have to treat this like a graft. Keep the broken parts together, if you can get some cut paste use it to seal the wound. It will take awhile to heal and probable be a weak spot. I have read where raffia is wrapped around a limb before bending to act as a brace if you will.
Good luck and hopefully you will get more advise from more advanced individuals.

__________________
A Bonsai student living with his trees at N 44.37 W 77.49...
Think before you act... then think again... no good comes from rushing

Tony

The only thing I can add is that you should make sure the cambium meets up on the two sections exeactly like they were before and then seal it good to keep it from drying out. With any luck the sections will grow together in a year or two.

Tony

Jimmy,


I did the same thing about a week ago on my juniper. In my case the branch was still connected with a HUGE crack on the branch. I used "Fun Dap" and wrapped this around the wound. It seems to be working you might wanna try it. In case your wondering.. Fun Dap is a putty used to put posters and pictures on the walls... Check your local Walmart..

good luck with that branch!



Jeff...

jimmygreen

Okay i hope the picture i attached and my lengthy explaination will make some sense of what happened... First of all, as soon as i got home that day, the leaves were shriveled and a bunch fell off... I left the broken branch tightly attached to the rest of the tree using wire and went looking around in my mom's gardening stuff for some sort of sealant and i found a tube of something called 'thomson's organic sealer' that she used on one of her plants in the house. So anyway i put a dab of the stuff on my finger and spread it on to the broken part of the branches and held it in place for about half an hour or so, just to be sure it stuck. After a couple days all the leaves had fallen off the branch that was seperate from the tree but the leaves of the branch that were still attached to the rest of the tree were as healthy as they were before. I left it be just to see if maybe new leaves would grow back.. But then last night i went to check on my trees and the branch had fallen off! There was no point in re-applying the sealer since the wounds had already dried up. So aaanyway, all thats left of it is a big ugly scar on the branch that remained in tact. Luckily, the leaves are still growing and even new shoots have started growing off the branch so i dont think it's in too much danger.. It's just a matter of appearance. I attached a photo which may help explain what went on... (sorry for the poor illustrations)

(1)the location of the branch on the tree.
(2)the direction in which i wanted to bend the branch.
(3)the trunk in relation to the branches.
(4)where the branches split.
(5)what the branch looks like now.

The reason for the illustration instead of an actual photo is due to my lack of a digital camera/ scanner.

Thanks everyone for your help =]